In this article, we will talk about why overheating is terrible, why computers can get very hot and how to deal with it.
Sensor readings
Critical temperatures on the readings of the sensors mean overheating. Each piece of iron has its own critical temperatures. Offhand, temperatures up to 70 degrees under load are almost always normal, with the exception of hard drives. Their heating is better not to allow up to 50 degrees. Overheating a hard drive is especially dangerous because you can lose all your data! With a general heating of the computer case, with active work with the hard disk (for example, copying a large amount of information or prolonged work with torrent trackers), the hard disk may heat up above normal.
You can check the sensor readings using the software supplied with the motherboard or using third-party programs, such as AIDA64.
Brakes
If your computer has suddenly become slower, this does not necessarily mean that you need to reinstall the system or look for viruses, especially if the slowdown coincided with warming. When the processor or motherboard chipset overheats, it may slow down. The clock frequency of the processor is underestimated, it starts to heat up less and you can continue to work. But computer freezes are also possible.
Fans are spinning and noisy
The speed of some fans can be controlled depending on the temperature. This works if the corresponding option is enabled in the BIOS and special software is configured. Thus, when a certain temperature threshold is exceeded, the fans will spin faster and make more noise. But the problem will be when even at idle the speed does not subside.
Symptoms of video card overheating
If the video card overheats, then “artifacts” on the screen or freezes are possible. In principle, if you do not play at the computer, but work, then the video card should not overheat. I have already said that video cards come with active cooling (with a fan) and passive (without a fan). Unfortunately, under unfortunate circumstances, passive video cards can get very hot even just in Windows.
If there are no signs of overheating, then it is useful to run one of the diagnostic utilities at least once to check the “general temperature in the hospital”.
1. Artificial braking of the device
This is the easiest way, implemented in three mouse clicks.
If your processor or video card is already on the verge of throttling, then it is easier to prevent such a condition by reducing their frequencies and voltage in advance.
You can slow down the processor in power management. It is enough to set the "Maximum processor state" to 80-90% and the frequencies and voltages will noticeably decrease along with the temperature.
It's even easier to slow down a video card. It is enough to enable vertical sync or set a limit on the maximum number of frames (for example, in MSI Afterburner - Framelimit = 61-62).
After that, you need to lower the graphics quality settings in your games so that the video card is loaded by less than 70-80%. Its heating will be greatly reduced, albeit at the cost of some reduction in image quality.
This method is especially useful for laptops, which already operate at the temperature limit.
Insufficient thermal conductivity
If you keep your computer clean. And all the coolers are working, then the cause of overheating may be insufficient thermal conductivity between the chip and the cooling radiator itself. This applies to processors in the first place. Install the Speed Fan program on your computer, which is absolutely free. When you run it, you can see the temperature of all the chips in your system and judge by temperature indicators which component is overheating.
Between the processor and the heatsink is a special heat-conducting layer. It can be thermal paste or thermoplate (used mainly on laptops). Thermal paste after some time loses its heat-conducting properties and dries up. In this case, the dried layer should be carefully removed and replaced with new thermal paste. Thermal paste is applied in a thin layer on the processor and heatsink. After that, the radiator with the cooler is installed back into place.
2. Fan speed increase
When implementing this method, we also do not need to get up from the computer.
At a minimum, the video card almost always has a margin for increasing the fan speed. And at the cost of increasing rpm (and noise) we can lower its temperature.
MSI Afterburner works well for this. Put on your headphones and boldly add Fan speed, and the temperature will drop.
Case fans and a processor fan can also have a speed margin, which is worth looking at in the BIOS, in the Hardware monitoring and Fan settings.
3. Dust cleaning
Now we finally need to get up from the computer and work with our hands. Even a small amount of dust on the case filters and heatsinks in such heat dramatically worsens the temperature inside the case.
And if you haven't cleaned your computer or laptop for a long time, now is the time to do it.
4. Adding fans
Yesli vash korpus imeyet dopolnitel'nyye posadochnyye otverstiya pod ventilyatory, to ne pomeshayet na leto postavit' dopolnitel'nyye ventilyatory i na vduv, i na vyduv. Ventilyatory s oborotami v 900-1000 v minutu ne osobo dobavyat shuma, a pol'zy dadut nemalo. Dazhe yesli posadochnykh mest pod nikh net, mozhno eksperimentirovat'. If your case has additional mounting holes for fans, then it will not hurt to put additional fans for both intake and exhaust for the summer.
Fans with a speed of 900-1000 per minute will not add much noise, but they will give a lot of benefits. Even if there are no seats for them, you can experiment.
5. Replacing thermal paste
After using the computer for a long time, for example, two or three years, the processor thermal paste dries up, which means that the thermal conductivity is greatly impaired. The thermal paste is located between the CPU and heatsink cooler, which helps the latter to draw heat away from the CPU. I will not write here how to properly apply thermal paste to the processor, as I have already talked about this in this article.
Keep in mind that different CPUs and GPUs (graphics cards) have different optimum temperature ranges. Before you worry too much about temperatures, be sure to check your computer's documentation - or processor or graphics card specifications - so you know what temperature ranges are acceptable for your hardware.
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